Kilgrave’s Legacy Will Linger In Jessica Jones Season 2

Kilgrave may be dead (now there’s nominative determinism for you) but the mental trauma he causes Jessica Jones in season one of the Netflix show will still have an effect in the show’s lead character well into season two, says showrunner Melissa Rosenberg [via Esquire].

Kilgrave, unlike most supervillains, didn’t want to rule the world (or a little bit of it, at least… say, Hell’s Kitchen or Harlem). He was a man who couldn’t take “no” as an answer from a woman. And unfortunately, with mind control powers like his, he easily became the most dangerous stalker the world has ever know; in its own way, the mental abuse Jessica Jones suffered in season one was every bit as hard hitting as the Helen and Rob storyline in The Archers. Who says superhero shows don’t tackle real-world dramas?

“People don’t just heal. You don’t go through that just to say, ‘Oh, he got arrested, he’s in jail, I’m okay now,’” says Rosenberg. “That trauma is a huge part of who she is now.”

Which means Krysten Ritter’s Jessica will still be as crass, hard-drinking and self-destructive as ever in season two.

Rosenberg believes that her time working on Dexter has helped craft Jessica as a damaged character.

“I learned from working on Dexter that you can advance the character, but you never want to cure the character. With Dexter, the moment he felt guilt or accepted that he was ‘bad’, the show’s over. He’s no longer a sociopath. The equivalent for us would be if Jessica somehow recovered from the damage that had been done to her.”

She does offer a little glimmer of hope though: “She was kind of messed up even before Kilgrave came along and so in season two we can explore what’s possible for her moving forward.”